Theatre: Prologue to ‘The Golem’

Adapted by Vicky Flood from the novel by Gustav Meyrink

Once upon a time, a rabbi learned in the ancient mysteries of the Kabalah made a life-sized model out of clay. He placed a piece of paper containing secret words between its teeth and watched it come to life. This clay man – this Golem – rang the bells in the synagogue each day and slept each night when the words were removed from its mouth. But one night the rabbi forgot his duty and the creature raged through the streets in a restless frenzy.

The Golem was in due course restrained and returned to the realm of sleep and dead matter. But it was already too late: the streets had been bathed in murder and the Old Town remembers and cannot forget.

Perhaps you have heard other versions of this story. Perhaps you already know of the rabbi and his magic words. But we are not here tonight to tell the rabbi’s tale. Instead, we offer you ‘The Golem’ of Athanasius Pernath, a humble bookseller who some say was gifted, others cursed, with a unique capacity to see the myths that walked amongst us in the alleyways and courtyards of Old Prague.

This is more than a tale of clay made flesh; it is the history of human bodies who lived and died; it awakens sleeping ghosts. Above all it is a dangerous story and it is not to be told lightly. It is written on the walls of the houses and the stones of the street; it is written on our bones, and in our blood.

We begin during the dark months, on the day Master Pernath received a book from an extraordinary visitor.

A myth come to life.

‘The Golem will be performed at the Roundhouse Studio Theatre at 7.30pm, 13-16th August 2009. For more information and to buy tickets visit www.brokenglassplay.co.uk

Words and image (c) Broken Glass Theatre Company, June 2009